The Woman from Gale
by PhaerynTao
Summary: A recollection of Dove's life as a soldier, a cripple, a hero, and a potential mother.


a/n: I know I said no more SH fics, but darn it I just couldn't help myself. This idea hit me like a train and I just had to roll with it. It was so much fun to write though, granted it might not be that good to read, but I'll just see what you people who have the patience to blunder through this rather long thing have to say about it.

Sorry for the errors that might be in it, I tried my hardest to eliminate them.

Don't own the Hawks, naturally.

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There is a woman who lives on terra Gale, in a tiny cottage with a giant horizontal windmill on the top. Rusty and old, it creaks as the wind moves it. Rough red cooking utensils litter the surrounding area of the house, the peak giving off the wanted vibe of being grungy and unwelcoming. The wind rustles the rich green grass and pushes the clouds of vapor in damp calm circles. But only the woman hears the ghosts of the past drifting listless through the air, as if even the comfort of Cyclonia's fall wasn't enough to pacify their everlasting thirst for revenge.

The woman appears to live alone. She is relatively young, but her body holds scars that few have to carry to the grave with them. Her face is pale and lovely, but her obscure blue eyes hold much anguishing experience that anyone in contact with her the last few years have rarely been able to withstand being under her stare. Dark thick hair that was once to her shoulders is nearly gone, the last of it nothing but the short stubble of a buzz cut hairdo.

The woman limps meagerly, the metal of her synthetic leg gripping the soft earth as she walks over the water filled basin. Her fair arm cradles her large protruding stomach as she does her laundry in the brisk morning air that brings her no relief.

By any society's normal standards, Dove was ugly.

A hideous hermit who didn't turn on her homing beacon to let others know she was there, or answer her radio when someone sounded through the receiver wondering if anyone could hear them.

But on Gale, she is alone, and with no one around to pass such judgment she was free to let her physical appearance assume whatever shape it pleased.

Dove passed by Wren's grave every day on the way to the crawlspace to get canned peaches and other preserves. One part of her brain imagined his skeleton still feeding the parasites in the dirt while the other reassured her that his body was still magically in tact and would always be. They had stayed on that peak for as long as she could remember, barely interrupted by anyone. He died with her by his side, and no one else. Minutes before his death, his blood already ran cold and Dove willed as hard as she could to transfer her life into his so he wouldn't leave her.

But eventually he did.

Only sixteen years old, she went out into the night and dug his grave behind their cottage, cold rich dirt mixing with the tears on her face. By the time she manually lowered Wren's body into the grave, she looked like a lost crystal miner with twin trails of mucus running from her nose.

A full scale war waged against Cyclonia, who was getting more desperate by the day to conquer anything in their path. Dove began to discover that the Sky Knights wouldn't be enough to protect everyone. The population on Gale was small, and as far as she knew the Sky Knights from her terra had all been scattered to protect other parts of the Atmos. Some terras had ordered a draft of their people. Sex didn't matter, social status didn't matter. Sometimes they didn't even question a person's age, and young headstrong preteens could be seen on skimmers holding energy staffs, sent right into a cloud of Talons.

If you were willing to risk your life for the future of your terra, who were they to stop you?

Within days after the death of her grandfather, Dove knew where she should be, and set a course for the highest peak in Gale so she could be accounted for in the draft. The recruiters took one look at the stainless steel cooking pot on her head as a helmet, shook their heads in doubt, and wrote her name on a list held down to a clipboard. She was supplied with her own skimmer and weaponry; both of which she had to figure out on her own how to use. When she and her grandfather defended their cottage all they had to use was their catapult and their cannon that fired their cooking appliances at the enemies. Energy blades, staffs, ray guns; they piled the artillery into the young soldiers' hands. Like letting them run wild in a candy shop, and a few pieces were poisoned.

She spent six months in training. An average training unit would normally take two years to properly prepare. But it was in this way that Atmos' desperation for troops was evident. In what they were supposed to learn in twenty four months was crammed into only twenty four weeks. Twenty four sweat inducing, fiercely brutal, emotionally draining weeks. It took her weeks to decide whether they were actually preparing them for battle or simply abusing them as stress relief for the coming of war.

She thought she couldn't handle them shaving off all of her hair, tears running down her smudged white cheeks and watching her locks fall to the cold tile floor around her. She thought she couldn't handle sleeping in an eight by eight cell on a thick hard bed that could've been considered iron, or when she was given inadequate food and she would curl up like an unborn baby on her bed clutching her belly and wishing it would just stop growling and let her rest.

By the time she finished, she was able to take a punch to the stomach without flinching or recoiling; to take insults and self directed profanity with nothing but a blank and belittling stare, and to assemble an automatic weapon in less than twenty seconds. Everything had become so deadened inside of her that eventually she couldn't even bring herself to be thankful that this was only half a year's worth of this agony. All she could think about was her and the other soldiers' mission.

And how she would die to make sure that her cottage and her grandfather's grave stayed in tact until the end of time.

Two weeks before they departed for battle, Dove was eating the mess hall. Swiftly bringing the tasteless food into her mouth with her fork, a younger boy came up to her table at which she always ate alone at.

"You're Dove." He stated rather than asked.

Dove said nothing, but nodded slowly and her face slowly twisted into a calm and deadly glare. For a recruit so young, his voice grated like someone who had won a thousand medals.

Apparently some people still didn't understand that there was no room for arrogance where they were, or where they were going.

"I've seen you around." He said.

She wanted to say 'well no shit Sherlock. Was the first time when I was dragged down the dungeon hallway by one wrist for not making my bed properly, or was it when I was pushed into the river we all had to cross while we were doing our running drills?'

"Really." She answered instead. Lame and bored was her voice.

"And I'll bet you won't last one minute out on that battlefield." He said, crossing his arms and smirking heftily at her.

Dove wanted to break his neck and vomit at the same time. Intimidation was like crack in this place. The addicts' lips were covered in it, while the clean ones had to deal with the torment. Dove was clean. So very clean. She barely talked to anyone; even when she wanted salt from another table she wouldn't ask for it, she would simply go over, use a dash, and set it back down in complete and utter silence. Her voice was so underused she wished she would speak more just to see if she still had her accent.

Getting no rise from such a clean immune recruit, what's-his-face left. Before she became a soldier she would have struck the boy across the face to teach him a lesson, avidly yelling in his face in French why he was a waste of organic material on this planet.

This place taught you to take stuff. To let it bounce off your nerves of steel like a rock against the side of a skimmer.

On the morning of her regiment's first battle, Dove later remarked at what a strangely peaceful and dreamless sleep she had. She awoke earlier than everyone else. Through the tiny window in her cell, she saw that the sun hadn't risen yet. There was a distinct feeling that few people had slept that night, and restlessness wafted through the prison oriented building. Those who had managed to sleep that night moaned noisily in their dreams, probably having nightmares of the coming crusade. Dove remained nonplussed about the bloody events that the day ahead would bring. The collected anxiety did nothing to deter her from her wanting to face the Talons once more. To perhaps a lesser displayed extent, Dove despised the Cyclonian regime just like her grandfather. So many times after her confinement in the Cyclonian factory, she stared at the looming empty building that still resided in Gale with contempt. It tarnished the emerald beauty that was her terra, and her mind often bulldozed it down. The factory was a consistent reminder that those in power are not likely to give it up.

Finally, with flying knowledge, hand to hand combat skills, and a burning desire to crush Cyclonia in the palm of her hand, Dove acquired no fear in the face of her approaching duties.

The loud buzzer of morning sounded, and their cell doors automatically unlocked themselves. Unlike a regular morning no matter how bleak they normally were, today no cheeky smiles were exchanged between buddies, not even a brisk slew of good mornings. Dove scornfully willed them to be true to their routines and enjoy the time they had left before the battle.

Even then, she knew some of them would not return.

They were all ordered to get onto their skimmers and follow the generals to terra Mesa. Her body and mind were nearly numb and she felt nothing as her division would soon meet a swarm of Cyclonians. A rainstorm of red and blue energy blasts showered the young soldiers, and right then and there a few of them dropped like flies. Dove stayed focused; aiming her hand held energy cannon and blasting every talon she could fire at. Even with parachutes there were already fatalities. Those who had managed to survive landed on the green surface of Mesa, which would soon be stained with the blood and bodies of Talons and resistance soldiers alike.

Dove wasn't shot down. She landed on her own, abandoned her skimmer, and resumed her shooting on foot. Her vision was grainy, like an old roll of film. The scenes passed by like a movie as she fired and fired, killing as many Talons as she possibly could. The ground became wet and sticky with blood, and even she had trouble keeping a steady tread. Even as energy blasts nicked her cheeks or when she heard the cries of her comrades being slaughtered like lambs for veal, she climbed, jumped, scattered, and somersaulted her way across the vastly noisy battle ground like she had been a soldier for years on end.

Time didn't seem to exist anymore. And Dove was brought back to reality when a large explosion detonated behind her and sent her flying. She landed hard, but the surface was spongy and malleable. She looked down and found that she had landed on the fading bodies of her comrades.

It almost stunned her, how thankful she was that the corpses cushioned her fall.

Almost.

She was about to get up, but she felt a tight grip on her arm. Looking to her side, she saw that one of the bodies was still alive.

It was the boy who had heckled her in the mess hall a few weeks ago. And it was clear that his high and mighty façade had fallen.

Dove was about to wrench her arm away and leave him to die, but she saw the look on his face. Terrified, ashamed, in pain.

He whimpered like a child having a nightmare, but he couldn't wake up.

She looked at his body. He had shots to the shoulder and to the side of his head, and blood was dripping slowly down the side of his cheeks. He wasn't in that bad of shape; she wondered if something else was going on or if he was just scared and thought he would have a better chance of surviving if he just pretended he was dead.

"What's your name?" Dove said. Actually she shouted; the battle that did not stop for them was still loud as ever.

"A-Arkus…" He answered shakily.

"Can you stand?"

He shook his head.

Dove got up, knelt beside him, and lifted him underneath his arms. He screamed and cried and kicked like an infant throwing a fit from his injuries or being scared that he was brought back into clear view. She situated him on her back, telling him to hang on tightly and she was on the lookout for a medical crew that they had been told would come two hours into the battle. She just prayed that they hadn't been blown to smithereens yet.

It was obscure as to why she had decided to help the boy who had tried to daunt her. She knew that they were in a clear line of fire; a very vulnerable position to be in. Not to mention she no longer had her energy cannon. To be weaponless in war was not good.

They were sitting ducks.

Even with that fact looming heavily in her mind, Dove strained her body to carry the boy to a medical station. Dust gathered on the rims of her eyelids and tarnished her pale skin. Everyone was beginning to look the same; she could no longer tell the difference between her soldiers and the Talons. Unconsciously she wondered if maybe this lack of distinction would allow them to get out of this alive.

For the first time while they were there she was aware of everything. The sounds of gunfire hailed over them like a never-ending jackhammer pummeling itself into their brains through the ears. The smell of blood and sulphery discharge singed the hairs inside of her nose. Her skin felt like a sea of prickling needles, like tiny shrapnels were imbedded into the pores.

Everything she smelled was on her dry and thirsty tongue as well, making her want to rip it out.

If the battle was causing these affects on her, then she could only imagine what it was like for Arkus, who still clung to her back, sobbing like a kidnapped child.

In the distance, she saw a large red cross against a white surface despite the cloud of dust and blood that was turning into a giant haze. So she ran. She ran and ran, and made sure that she was in complete control of her drained body so it didn't get any ideas to rest without her permission. It seemed like she was running faster than the speed of light, although truthfully she was probably covering little ground.

_So close, so unbelievably close. That cross was so close. _

_A giant red cross. Arkus will live, get stitched up, go home as a hero._

_Don't fail, can't fail. Don't make a mistake, be nimble. _

_Almost…there…!_

Searing pain, intense sweltering pain. It shot up her leg and into every single nerve ending in her body. She couldn't see, she couldn't feel, taste, smell, or hear.

The battle disappeared.

Dove fell over, eyes crossing and fluttering. There was not an ounce of constraint left in her body, and her last thought before she blacked out was that she was finally dead. The sensation of invincibility was the death of her in the end. The pain lasted all throughout the blackout. She didn't know what it was, but knew that she was on her way to the land of eternity where she would be with her grandfather. But there was no tunnel of everlasting light, no choir of angels to caress her arms and tell her that it's going to be alright. The only thing she was aware of was the frantic jumble of voices and touches on her skin.

_Voices. Touch._

_Still in tact._

_But I died._

Only when she began to come to did she see the white light. But it glowed diabolically bright and made her want to close her eyes again. People with white masks covering their mouths hovered over her, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. The more she tried to sit up or even move they held her back down. A white curtain hid her body below the waist.

"Whas goin' on…" She mumbled, her lips numb and unused.

"Calm down, miss."

"What's goin' on?" She asked again, her voice slightly more temperate.

"I told you to calm down. Go back to sleep, you need rest."

It was obvious that they weren't going to give her any answers. But she tried one more:

"Where's Arkus?"

"He's fine, miss. Now rest."

A strange ghost pain still rippled through her body.

"It hurts…" She told them.

"You'll be okay."

Visions of home came floating back to her mind in shades of heavenly lime jade. She could remember her grandfather's voice spewing French curse words at whatever contraption he was trying to get up and running, the clear sparkle of Gale's water running over her white hands as she prepared dinner. Randomly enough, she could barely recall any memories of her mother and father. They had left a long time ago; that's all Wren had said about the matter. Being told this so young, the desire to get more details out of him was stifled and soon enough it disappeared.

Dove fell asleep, tired and bored of listening to the voices of the doctors who said things she didn't understand.

The next time she awoke, it was four days later. When she asked them why she had fallen asleep for so long, they said it was because they gave her a drug to help her rest.

"What happened to me out there?" She asked.

The intense pain before she blacked out on the battle field was not forgotten.

The doctors glanced at each other several times. They were anxious.

"Tell me." Dove said, her voice deadly firm.

Finally they nodded to each other, and one of them said:

"You've lost your right leg, soldier."

The words didn't register.

They just didn't.

The numbness in her body suddenly flared up in unease as she silently reviewed their words over and over again.

She finally understood why the white curtain covered the lower half of her body.

"Let me see."

"Miss, I don't think you're ready-"

"I said let me see it, god damnit!" She snarled.

So they lifted the curtain.

And she gasped at the sight of the stump that was covered in white bandages.

And then she screamed.

Inaudible things at first, which later eased into broken parts of speech.

She shook her head violently from side to side and ran her fingernails painfully over her revealed scalp, drawing blood. The doctors yelled at each other to fetch the proper equipment, and they belted her down to the hospital bed. They pushed her to a solitary room where she could be surveyed but not in the presence of others. Before they left her, they put the curtain back on her lower half.

Dove's hysterics lasted hours, fluctuating back and forth between benign and intense before she was silent as a tomb.

_I lost my leg._

_I'm incomplete._

_I'm disabled._

Days later they came to get her, and the only reaction to their arrival a deadened glance.

A lost limb was something most unheard of in Atmos.

Months passed. Her knowledge of how much time she had spent there had been gained and lost, and soon she didn't care at all. She unknowingly spent her seventeenth birthday in the recuperation station. Her psycho and physio therapy was difficult, due to her less than enthusiastic cooperation.

It got to the point where Dove rarely spoke.

She was given her own room whose window faced out towards the populated areas of Mesa that somehow lay untouched by the battle. Besides the window she sat, her eyes unfocused, and her mind wandering as far away as it possibly could. Normally she would transport herself back home, but now she thought about the people she knew. Her grandfather qualified, but thinking about him was starting to make her restless and sad, two things she already felt enough of.

They were out there, finishing the war between Cyclonia and the rest of Atmos. And she was here, sitting and dealing with perky nurses feeding her painkillers and soft spoken touchy-feely therapists trying to 'get through to her'.

Her eighteenth birthday passed. She lost all hope of leaving.

Until one day they presented her with a synthetic leg.

It was a very light metal and the beautiful silver material glinted in the sunlight. It even resembled an actual leg, the form solid and the muscles defined.

But Dove looked at it with disdain.

Even when they coaxed her with the idea that she would be able walk again, it was just too real. Almost two years in the clinic, she hadn't completely come to terms with that pale remnant that used to be her entire leg.

Finally, she asked her nurses and doctors to leave her so she could try it on. For the first time in a year she unraveled the off white bandages and let her fingers run themselves long the smooth bony flesh of the stump. She was told that the leg was made out of a special alloy that would be able to reproduce a small amount of the nervous system her real leg had contained. Dove lined it up flush with her thigh, and watched in slight fascination as it attached itself to the stump. She tried to rise and was successful, but she needed to hold onto something so she didn't lose her balance. Part of her was thankful for such technology, while the other honestly cursed it for trying to replicate actual organic feelings.

She practiced walking around her room, each step making it easier to maneuver herself. After hours of experimenting, she opened the door of her room and walked out into the hallway.

Dove had a reputation here: quietly crass and unable to be reached by anyone, she was a female soldier whose leg had been torn off by a large energy blast in the battle of terra Mesa. And spoke to few. She could hear the whispers of other patients whenever she walked by them, escorted up and down the halls to various therapies by the tight hand of a timid nurse or a frustrated doctor.

Sometimes she just wanted all of them to shut the hell up.

Out in the hallway the familiar medics who took it upon themselves to take care of her in the duration of her time there stood amongst each other discussing whatever people in their professions did. They looked up, and saw Dove in her hospital gown, sporting the synthetic leg.

Some of them smiled, others gasped. A few just stared, mouths wide open. Doctor Tenmaros, a man who had operated on her the first time she came, was the only one to approach her. Dove's reaction was one of uncertainty, but she looked him in the eye.

"How do you feel, Dove?" He said.

"Amazing." She said sarcastically.

"Of course." He replied, almost laughing. He was the only person in the clinic who wasn't perturbed by her scathing demeanor.

"Am I allowed to leave?" She asked briskly.

"Soon, Dove. Soon."

She had been told many things in the clinic: that she was fine, that she was going to be alright, that things were perfect, or not all that bad. But for some reason she believed him when he said she was going to leave soon.

The day before she was released, she was given a letter. The only letter she ever received while at the clinic.

_Dove of the Fifty Forth Regiment,_

_For your brave efforts against the Cyclonian Empire on terra Mesa, you have been _

_cordially invited to an award ceremony on terra Atmosia. We understand you have _

_lost much in these last few perilous years during the war, and we only hope that _

_public recognition of your achievements can help heal a fraction of your battle _

_scars. Join us and celebrate the fall of Cyclonia and the restoration of health _

_to the Atmos. Attendance is not mandatory, but we do insist that you come to_

_ receive your prize for doing an exception job at such a young age._

_Sincerely,_

_The Sky Knight Council_

Her brow crumpled in disbelief. An _award ceremony_?

That was certainly the _last _thing she expected the letter to be about. Of course she didn't expect anyone to write her at all, so how could she be all that surprised that it was something so lame?

Doctor Tenmaros poked his head in and knocked on the side of the doorway. Dove ushered him in wordlessly.

"So…tomorrow's the big day, eh?" He said softly.

Dove shrugged.

"If you don't mind my asking, what's your letter about?"

"Apparently, I'm due for an award on Atmosia for my…_heroics._" She replied almost bitterly.

"Well that's wonderful, isn't it?" He asked.

She sighed heavily.

"Dove…I know it's going to be difficult from now on…goodness, you're so young, what was done to you is something no one should ever have to-"

"Enough, Tenmaros. The sentimental crap never did it for me, alright?"

"Yes, of course." The Doctor chuckled.

Dove sat in her respective chair next to the window while Tenmaros stood beside her.

"Are you going to go?"

"…"

"Call it your first destination."

And he left.

Dove wanted to go home really badly. She wanted the low moisture filled clouds to wet her fingers; she wanted to feel the soft velvet green grass against the foot that could still possess the sensations.

She made her decision.

One little delay wouldn't hurt, right?

The next day she took a public transporter to terra Atmosia. She sat next to the side rails, near the windows, where she could gaze unfocused and undisturbed at the endless feathery clouds. The public transporters were always crowded; especially in these post war days when refugees were moving place to place to reestablish their lives. There were children running up and down the aisles, mothers and fathers having quiet conversations, and the air conditioner hummed loudly. Dove almost nodded off, her head lolling to the side. In just a few hours she would be meeting the Sky Knight council and receiving an award for her bravery.

She found it unexplainably eerie that they applied the virtue of bravery to her. It just didn't feel right.

In her mind it simply felt like she was doing her job.

When she arrived, it felt like time had stopped again. But it wasn't because of being caught up in the action of combat; it was because it literally felt like time had stopped here. Atmosia was unchanged; she had been there only once, when she was very young. And not one thing had changed. The streets were not overly crowded, the people's morale was high, and everything seemed clean and kempt.

Almost like a war never even happened.

It made her feel like she stuck out like a burning beacon. She tried to make sure her metal leg didn't make too much noise upon the cobblestones.

She came to the Sky Knight council building and went in. Although walking amongst the strangers was a little uncomfortable, Dove just pulled her blue robes closer to her gangly lithe body and tucked the feelings away. People chatted up storms, sloshing champagne and wine in eloquent crystal glasses. After a few minutes of wandering around in her awkward gait she found a wall and leaned against it, amusing herself until the ceremony began by picking at a piece of peeling wallpaper.

"Hey there, soldier."

Dove turned to the person who spoke and immediately wanted to run from them.

Or hug them until they were short of breath. Whatever came first.

Fortunately she oppressed such hasty reactions and instead smiled as she looked upon the familiar auburn mop and green eyed face that belonged to Aerrow of the Storm Hawks.

"Aerrow, I wasn't expecting to see you here." She said smoothly.

"Please _please_ tell me that was sarcasm." Aerrow laughed, and she chuckled quietly while nodding slightly.

In truth, she really wasn't expecting him to be here. Like an idiot. How on Atmos could she not have expected one of the most influential Sky Knights to be there?

_God, you moron…_

On the outside she conversed with her past savior with smiles and unruffled charms, but inside she wanted to slip out of sight and escape. She just wanted to come and get this stupid thing over with, not meet old friends whom she thought about frequently in less than virginal circumstances. The mere image of him kept her alive and awake in the clinic. She could have easily hung herself using her bed sheets, but she remembered seeing a pair of damnable burnished green eyes and found that she could stand one more day in the land of the living.

Hold on…

Only _one _damnable burnished green eye.

As she looked closer she realized his right eye that had adopted a pale milky color in its iris.

"Aerrow, what happened to your eye?" Dove asked suddenly.

His hand unconsciously shielded it from her view.

"Its from constantly being in consumed crystal fumes. It went out about a year ago and it's been pretty much useless ever since."

Dove couldn't speak for a short time. Mostly because of his remarkable ability to be so honest about it. She wondered if she could ever be like that regarding her leg. Chances were, probably not.

"Dove, it's been so long. Don't go speechless on me now, we gotta catch up." He insisted.

"Well…my grandfather passed away right before I joined the army." Dove said, thankful that she was able to say it without lamenting it too much.

"I'm sorry." Aerrow said, eyes flickering downward.

"Don't be."

They said nothing more and stared at each other, for one reason or another.

They had both changed drastically; his hair had grown even more and was beginning to look out of control. She could see tiny scars on his cheeks and forehead, but she could not fault him; the scars added character to his already handsome face. The issue of his youth and Atmos' protection in his hands no longer existed, for it was obvious that he had grown into the large shoes laid before him all those years ago. She could hardly imagine what she must have looked like to him. In fact she didn't even want to know. She thought if she preserved her appearance from when they first met then maybe it would somehow morph its way into the present.

Dove was drawn away from Aerrow by a tug on her arm. She turned, and looked right into the young face of Arkus, the boy she saved in the battle on Mesa.

"Miss Dove?" He said, not meeting her eyes.

"Hello Arkus, long time no see." She said.

Another individual whom she didn't expect to be there. But this one didn't surprise her as much

"I just wanted to thank you for saving me. You've been on my mind ever since."

"Thank you. That's very kind." Dove said.

"Also…" He added. "I-I'm sorry for that day before the battle, when I said those things to you…it was wrong and-"

"Arkus, please. It was nothing, really."

"But it _is_ something! I had the gall to taunt your courage and you ended up saving my life!"

Dove stared at the boy, who was close to tears.

_My, what an emotional boy._

"Arkus, I've long since forgiven you. Don't dwell on things of the past. By the way, why are you here in the first place?" She asked.

"Well…I've requested that I be the one to give you your award. It's the least I can do for you." Arkus said, before bowing and walking away into the small scattered crowd of people.

"So _that's _the reason you're here." Aerrow said after the boy had gone.

"…I suppose."

The awards were given out just moments later, and with a smile on his young face Arkus presented to Dove a large seal, an intricate silver and gold phoenix engraved in the metal. They were pretty, but they hung heavily around Dove's neck. A symbol of her heroics, just like she told her doctor. Even with the medal touching the middle of her breast plate, she still didn't feel too heroic.

The ceremony ended, and the building was beginning to clear out. Aerrow and Dove walked together to the edge of Atmosia and looked out at the vast space beyond their terrace.

They talked about random things; strange things, like specific thoughts during specific times during specific events. The randomness eased into experiences during the war. Who suffered what injuries, who killed which soldier and how many, which companions would rather flee than fight for their freedom. Aerrow said that it was difficult to regain the full strength of his abilities after he could no longer see through his right eye. She thought about it, and realized that he said nothing about her short hair, or the tiny scratches that blemished her once flawless face. So, Dove finally caved in and told him about her leg, sliding up her robe just a little bit so he could see the glinting silver of the artificial limb.

Upon seeing the leg he just smiled, stroked her cheek, and called her brave. That weird word again.

When she asked him what became of the Storm Hawks, his face looked cheerless.

"We split. Went back to our home terras or just went after different careers."

"Well that's a good thing, no?" Dove asked.

"Yeah…"

"That doesn't sound very convincing." She remarked.

"They had other things to keep them going, that's all. The only thing I ever had was…being a Sky Knight."

Dove said nothing to that.

She left Gale with nothing, and in many ways she thought she was going to return with nothing. For some odd reason, she was okay with that.

Aerrow wasn't okay with the war being over. He liked that no more people would die, no more terras would be enslaved, and no more teens would be drafted. But all of a sudden, with Cyclonia in the past, he thought he had no purpose.

"Aerrow, were you really the one who sent me the letter?"

After a whole minute, he finally nodded.

"I wanted to see you again."

She thanked whatever force influenced her to go to Atmosia the day she got that invitation.

"I'm going home tomorrow, Aerrow." She said.

He glanced at her.

"You're welcome to join me."

"You mean…to settle down?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well sure." She said simply. "You're my friend and I care about you; sounds to me like you have nowhere to go; in that case, my house is your house."

Aerrow didn't look at her. He just gazed at the empty dark ahead of them.

"I love you, Dove."

The words sent a rush of feeling through her body and her face fell in delight, but he couldn't see it in the dim lighting.

"I didn't want to leave the day we brought you back from the factory."

She was close to tears. Wonderful tears; the kind that didn't sting but warmed the flesh.

And then they fell, with Dove clutching the medal at her chest in a death grip to keep her composure. Aerrow wiped them away with his calloused palm.

The two of them went back to Gale the next morning on Aerrow's skimmer, Dove close behind him and clutching his waist tightly. The trip took a day, and they arrived by nightfall. They were anything but tired. Dove felt nothing like her previous persona; numb, blunt, hateful in all meanings. She felt free as a bird, free to be as imperfect as possible. Free to feel the ungodly sensation while seeing her lover's hand on her synthetic leg like it was real flesh blood and bone. With her metal leg and his milky sightless eye, they seemed destined. So much had been lost those few years, so much. But the nights of fruitful lovemaking did nothing to stem the depression that had grown inside of her. After two years in the cottage in Gale, a mission arose. Of all _times, _Dove had wondered. These were the days of peace in Atmos; who in the hell was stirring up trouble now?

The mission called for all Sky Knights, and naturally, Aerrow left. He promised he'd be back of course, but he still left.

Left Dove alone. With the moisture filled clouds, the soft green grass, and a growing belly that seemed to take forever to conceive.

Dove lives in that cottage in Gale alone, for seven months now. She hears from her husband every now and then, apologizing that its taking him so long to get home and that he misses her like a Saharr fern misses water. Deep down she knows that he is glad to be away from home, to serve his 'purpose'. She yearns for his hand to touch her leg again, to remind her that she is not useless or disabled. Her hand strokes her round stomach obsessively as she goes about her day, the baby inside being the only present reminder that she is loved and that she is needed. Each night she can feel the fetus in her womb, clinging to the insides of her uterus and silently thanking her for supporting it.

Dove strokes the dirt on Wren's grave each day. She washes her clothes, and cooks her meals. She is a sad young woman, with short kept hair and an artificial right leg. She lives her life, day by day. Day by day.

She loves Aerrow, and she loves her unborn baby. Without even a shadow of a doubt.

But she had to wait for both of them.


End file.
